OK...

1) Bought my Dragon*Con tickets.
2) Paid Janice for my half of the hotel
3) Bought my Nobuo Uematsu convert tickets (got GREAT seats, 3rd and 4th row of the first balcony) AND got discount parking passes
4) Will look into a hotel after I pay off more of the credit card.

That's June and September taken care of. ;-)

Seeing Sin City today, then seeing an old high school friend give a classical guitar concert tomorrow. Hopefully it'll help me take my mind off of stress.

Republished because of a shit comment. One more of those, and no comments will be allowed, period.

More pics!

Purr-fect, weighing in at exactly 8 ounces
Lion, weighs 8 5/8ths ounces
The camera-shy Lamb, 8 3/8ths ounces
And Daffodil, the heavyweight champ at 9 3/8ths ounces Yeah, he'll need a new name. ;-)

And I caught Kahvi and Sweet Thing curled up on the bed, in exactly opposite directions. They say it's a twin thing, we wouldn't understand...

Bourbon Congratulations! You're 113 proof, with specific scores in beer (60) , wine (83), and liquor (69).

Screw all that namby-pamby chick stuff, you're going straight for the bottle and a shot glass! It'll take more than a few shots of Wild Turkey or 99 Bananas before you start seeing pink elephants. You know how to handle your alcohol, and yourself at parties.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 28% on proof You scored higher than 87% on beer index You scored higher than 87% on wine index You scored higher than 87% on liquor index

Link: The Alcohol Knowledge Test written by hoppersplit on Ok Cupid

Hell yeah it's a good day.

Hooked up my new Logitech digital speakers, and I am frequently orgasmic from the experience. This, my friends is how music should be heard. So far there has been no interference from the massive BASS I have vibrating out from under the computer desk. No fuzziness from any guitar solos or lyrical content.

Then I go to Mom and Dad's, to help celebrate my brother and sister-in-law's 40th birthdays. Dad makes ribs. I die and go to heaven eating. I now have extra ribs in my fridge which I plan to take to work, microwave so everyone can smell them, and eat like the barbarian I am.

Now I am finishing off the last of the Jack Daniels, blasting the Black Mages through my new speakers *music-gasm*, and planning to play on Aardwolf until I can't type anymore.

Yeah, good day. :-)

KITTENS!!!

Pile o' newborn kittens
Another pile o' newborn kittens
Between the three pics, you can see everyone's face.

Proud and exhausted new mom
Also a very watchful and protectful new mom
She really won't let us get too close to them yet

There's 4, born sometime last night. For now, they're Daffodil (the orange and white one), Purrfect (the one who's an exact copy of Mom), and Lion and Lamb (the two black and white ones).

My 7 1/2 year old neice.



When did she get so big? *cries*

It's not that I don't have internet access at work, it's that I'm still feeling out what's kosher and what's not. I basically check my email and a couple of news sites a couple of times a day, and leave it at that. I don't see my co-workers doing a lot of extraneous browsing, so I don't want to make waves. Yet.

So far, so good. After making sure my boss understood that I wasn't there to be an Admin for the Director of IT but a Help Desk person, I didn't get asked to schedule shit or get her mail anymore and learned how to do more help desk stuff.

And it turns out that I will get paid for one week by Edens & Avant (yes, I'll fix the link later) next week, so I went ahead and bought myself the vaccuum cleaner I need, then took out Mom and Dad to Longhorn's last night. I won't have time today, but tomorrow I'll swing by Best Buy and get some new computer speakers. I'm also considering a flash drive (or 3) for home backup purposes... My MP3 collection is 7.74GB and growing, and some of the stuff in there would be a pain in the ass to replace. I'll see what they have. If not, I'll just buy another spindle of CDs and get to work.

Last weekend, being bored, I went out and bought a new game, Final Fantasy IX.

LOVE it. Love it love it love it. It's so funny and so lighthearted but with serious tones at the same time. I've blown through disk 1 in record time, I'm sure, but everything's so gorgeous I won't mind at all if I have to start over.

And Vivi... that's me. That's me before I found my voice and the courage to use it. I can't wait to see the whole thing through.

Your anime hair color is blue.


What is your anime hair color?
brought to you by Quizilla

Home early from work with a sinus infection. 875mg of Augmenten twice a day for the next 10 days should kill it dead.

Don't have AIM on... Linda has to learn how to cope at work without me. She's quite capable, just needs some self-confidence.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm about to go waste obscene amount of time here, playing Lone Wolf. Think "Choose Your Own Adventure" on steriods, on the web. Thank you, JT, for showing me this.

Finally gotten out of my slump enough to write some. A bit here, some scribble in my notebook there, but it's something.

I'm also slowly taking things out of my office and deleting them off of that hard drive. I'd rather not take the chance of leaving anything behind that someone could come back after me with later.

Did my taxes Sunday, and I'll be getting around $900 back between state and federal. Unfortunately, instead of being able to spend it on things I need like a new winter coat, a vaccuum that's good for hardwood floors, or new computer speakers, I'm going to have to use it to pay bills because of the difference between Nexsen Pruet's and Edens & Avants' pay schedule.

Borrow from Dawn:

Bold means you've read the whole book, italicized means you've read part of it.

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift - Required reading in high school
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer - see above
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - see above
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - gosh, we read this in middle school
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - required for high school
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy - CRAP book, required for high school
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire - required for high school
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque - required for high school
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding - read it in middle school the first time
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway - required for high school, what garbage
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison - read it in middle school
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - also read it in middle school
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson - read it in middle school
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - Our middle school library had a little bit of everything
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder - Many, many times since elementary school
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood - just recently... not as good as people told me it was
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein - sometime in high school, it's eh
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - read it for middle school
#111 Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
#112 the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
#113 The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
#114 A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle - zillions of times since I was in the single-digits of age
#115 The Witches of Worm, Zilpha Keatly Snyder
#116 120 Days of Sodom, the Marquis de Sade

Your Brain is 60.00% Female, 40.00% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female You are both sensitive and savvy Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

What Gender Is Your Brain?

The reason I've been stressed the last few weeks?

Job interviews.

The result?

I've got a verbal acceptance in. Will make everything official in a business day or two.

(works on my goodbye email)

(rewrites my goodbye email)

(edits my goodbye email)

Hmmm... looks like I'm gonna need those two weeks to get this one right. ;-)

I know, I know, I need to be writing about Myrtle Beach. I'll get to it. Really. *ducks and runs from wrath of Janice*

You are White Chocolate You have a strong feminine side with a good bit of innocence thrown in. Whether your girlish ways are an act or not, men like to take care of you. You are an understated beauty, and your power is often underestimated! What Kind of Chocolate Are You? Take This Quiz :-) Find the Love of Your Life (and More Love Quizzes) at Your New Romance.

I'll post a full thing about Medieval Times a little later. Just need to brag.

422 words. 40ish minutes.

Guess I can still write.

It's kinda pitiful... I wanted to do This age quiz thingy, but by the 3rd question I had already left two blank. I wouldn't watch any of those TV shows, and there wasn't an option for those of us who live alone and like it that way. Oh well.

Off to Medieval Times in Myrtle Beach today... gotta make a MP3 cd for Janice's car, clean the cat pans, and ask if Janice got directions before I head out of here.

We moved from the 12th floor to the 10th floor of the office building we're in, and I'm slowly getting used to the former interior closet that is now my office. So I've been printing off a lot of my space photos, as well as some Final Fantasy stuff.

The walls are covered with some cloth wallpaper crap. The morning after we moved in and I put up some things, every single space scene was on the floor. The Final Fantasy stuff was still up.

I think Sephiroth is holding those pics up by sheer will alone. ;-)

Lately my attention span has more closely resembled a gnat that my usual. I can't write, can't get into books. Have been reading a lot of old comic books, tho. Almost makes me want to put myself into debt again to collect some DC stuff.

HOORAY! I get to use FireFox at work! 'Bout damn time...

Trying out the above... if it keeps working, I'll move it over to the side.

Stolen from Janice's blog


You are most like Raven. Quiet and usually soft
spoken, you don't like crowds and can be
slightly gothic. You try to repress your
emotions for one reason or another but one of
your most powerful emotions is your anger. Your
temper sometimes gets the best of you and when
that happens those in your way would wish they
weren't. You seem somewhat creepy to others and
you earn a few odd stares but who cares? You
aren't an outdoors person and avoid venturing
outside when you can. You are generally the
smart one and maybe not by trying to, the most
cynical and sarcastic of the bunch which can be
good or bad. You don't like anyone invading
your privacy and you don't seem to be all that
social. But for what it's worth you can be
quite handy in a tough situation. You are drawn
to the darkness or night most of the time. You
appear mysterious and/or potentially dangerous
at times and not everyone trusts you right
away.


Which Teen Titans Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Updated the friend links, and added Janice (Hey Janice!!)

DOH~! Sorry, Jeannie. Things have been happening since Monday that I'm not ready to put up here yet, but that have kept me busy.

Turns out that the pain and swelling was because I had a snack and a half crammed up in between the last and next-to-last molar on the top right side. He numbed me up, took out this long pointy tool, and dug it all out. After a lecture about my flossing habits (or, more corectly, the complete lack thereof), he sent me home. He called last night to make sure I was doing fine, and I am. The gum's back to it's normal size, there's no pain, and I'm buying floss when I go grocery shopping today. ;-)

I'm guessing that if the gums around my upper right middle molar are inflamed and sore and bleed when I brush them, I should probably head to the dentist to get it looked at.

Bleh. I'll do it after I get out of class today.

Just got finished beating "Chrono Trigger". Awesome little game, lots of fun to play. This is the first "new" game I've beaten in a while, so that's always cool.

My three nephews... TJ is the blonde, Joshua's on the dinosaur, and Caleb's beside it.

GO HERE!

Watch trailer #4 (it's the one with Cloud's face)

Wait for the very last second or two.

See if you suddenly jump back from the screen and go SON OF A BITCH!!!!

*turns into blithering pile of goo*

MP3 player update: Talked to Alex in India, and after a few minutes of being on hold he agreed that the thing was broken. They're sending me a brand new one (I paid for that warrentee for a reason), then I'll send the broken one back.

Now I just have to put up with Columbia's shitty radio situation until then.

Remember how I said a month or two ago that my MP3 player wouldn't cut on? I called Dell, talked to someone in India, and they said to put a paperclip edge into the small hole and it would reset.

Well, last night my MP3 player wouldn't cut on, so this morning I found something (a saftey pin) to put into the hole. Except there's nothing inside the hole for it to push. When I move the MP3 player, something rattles around in there.

*sigh*

Just got finished watching "Homefront" from season 4 of Deep Space Nine. That's one of those episodes where by the end you just sit in shock and say, "Holy shit, they went there." Gives the meaning of the next episode's title, "Paradise Lost", a WHOLE new meaning...

It's cold and windy here, but no snow or ice. Thank the Gods.

My plans for the day? Take a shower when it warms up a bit (my windows are one pane of glass with no storm windows on top of them) and spend the rest of the day in my fluffy robe in front of Final Fantasy VI.

FF VI... Gods, I could go on and on about this game. I see things that were expanded in future installments (espers = GF's), I hear musical bits that were turned into major themes (empire theme turns into Sephiroth's theme), and this world is probably 5 times bigger than any of the other games. And it originally came out on the SNES!

Whoever it is in the Columbia area who has my Cowboy Bebop #6 disc, COUGH IT UP!!!

Watched the first Iron Chef America this morning on tape, and enjoyed it except for that arrogant ass Bobby Flay. Sorry, but Bayless was WAY cooler. But this was fun, I'll keep getting Dad to tape it.

Just got back from seeing "Elektra". Not too bad, but everything just sorta ended. There were fights, then they ended. There was an ending, but it didn't go anywhere, it just faded to black.

20 minutes of trailers, I kid you not. "Fantastic Four" looks OK, but why is Doctor Doom shooting lightning? I might have to take Dad to see "Sahara", the Dirk Pitt novel brought to the screen. Christian Slater still gets jobs? And Disney feel good crap. And more stuff I can't remember now.

This is Jenn. *Jenn waves from the keyboard*

This is Jenn's friend Jack Daniel's. *points to bottle*

Jack knows Jenn has had a shitty two weeks at work, and have one more shitty week to go.

Jack agrees with Jenn when she says that shot glasses are for pussies. Jenn knows Jack agrees with her, otherwise the bottle wouldn't be so easy to hold and lift with one hand.

Jenn will feel much better soon. *waves goodbye*

So much for my resolution about not eating out as much. :-p

Got the "Final Fantasy X-2" soundtrack recently. Very good. I ripped 41 out of the 60ish tracks and I'm quite happy with them. At least one is going into the soundtrack for the latest writing project.

707 words in 3 days. Bleh.

So work is interesting. Stephanie's leaving, Sandra's getting her job (not going into why, it's over with, I'm on to better hunts), and I'm training Linda to replace Sandra. Linda will be OK as soon as she learns not to be afraid of messing up.

This leaves me with no time to read, or write. And right now I'm feeling it. I'll figure out something...

*whines about the "Long Wait" tag on Cowboy Bebop 6*

Hey! According to ABC news, I'm one of the people of the year!

Two big resolutions for the year:
1) Eat out less, especially at lunch. This sucks away WAAAAY too much of my money, and I have house repairs to do.
2) Spend more time with Raven, Joshia, Caleb, and TJ. I have been a rather neglectful Auntie Jenn, and there's no one to blame but myself for being a lazy ass.

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog - Lots of information here.

Tsunami Relief - gathered by Google, who are real good and finding things. ;-)

Right now, the estimates are at 80,000 dead and climbing hourly. Here's a list of places you can donate money to help.

The Red Cross
UNICEF (be patient, their server seems to be overloaded)
CARE (I gave them $25)
Doctors Without Borders (again, be patient with their server)

If you know of any other organization, please put it in the comments.

GUESS WHAT!

I might have 2 - 5 inches (INCHES!!!) of snow on the ground by tomorrow noon.

*goes off to hibernate for a few days*

Computer is back up and running now... just have to install 10,000 things.

Oh, and to make my day that much better, the arthritis doctor called and said he doesn't see anything in my test results that told him why my back was hurting, so he's sending a letter to my doctor telling him to send me to an orthopedic doctor.

Thanks to something in one of the Windows updates I downloaded yesterday morning, my home computer is hosed.

Now I get to spend my holiday vacation formatting the hard drive and reinstalling everything.

Fucking Microsoft...

How sweet. I'm came back from eating my lunch to find that someone left a chunk of decent-quality chocolate on my desk. No note, just an offering to the IT Goddess. ;-)

Between screen caps of evil Kadaj smirking at me and wallpaper of Sephiroth and his bitter smile, I am SO not going to live to see "Advent Children" with anything that remotely resembles sanity...

I do believe that one speaks for itself.

After laying down in a puddle of cat pee last night, Sephiroth has gone back to the Lexington County Animal Shelter to be tested for infection, then will go on to Project Pet, a no-kill place, to be advertised as for houses with no other pets.

My virutal model

My results. Fairly accurate, if missing lots of scars and about 18 inches of hair. ;-)

I hate my body.

It has betrayed me. It had turned into something in the last 10 years that is completely other from what it was in the nearly 20 before that. Before, I was strong for a woman, barely sick, capable of climbing trees and out-fighting a boy.

Now it takes a week or more to recover from a small stomach virus. My arthitis rides me like Hell's own bitch. Food is barely tolerated, and sometimes when it is it attacks my pouch with a vegence I can't explain.

I cannot leave now... I still have obligations laid on me. But, I swear, some days...

I've looked in two different mirrors, in two different kinds of light, and I'm pretty sure the bangs that I'm growing out are coming in with a lot fo silver and grey.

But then, considering how sick I've been over the last month, it wouldn't surprise me if my whole damn head turns that way.

And no, I won't color it. Puh-leeze. First off, I'd never find anything to match my color. Secondly, I shudder to think how many bottles of dye it would take to color my whole head.

Oh, and PS: I think my Dell DJ MP3 player died. :-p

Nationwide is not on my side... they only want to give me $220 or so to replace and repair the garage.

My garage door pulled itself apart last night.

Literally.

When I get a chance, I'll put up the pictures. Insurance adjuster is coming, and my car is missing it's passenger side mirror.

I'm OK.

I present to you, Sephiroth the cat:



She may be mine soon. I think.

FINALLY, Blogger lets me back in... three more:

Sorry for the spam
But this is the only thing
Keeping me awake

Lawyers kill many
Innocent trees in persuit
Of the next paycheck

Burned rubber smell makes
An already unpleasant
Evening that much worse

Two more...

Boredom reigns supreme
Then frantic typing occurs
Until calm returns


Two foot long brown braid
Follow the path of pain down
And touches my hips

Back pain unending
Will I ever have relief?
Not in this lifetime


Haikus are fun. ;-)

Here's a haiku I wrote...

Overtime is fun
Except when the lawyers here
Are fucking clueless


Thank you, I'll be here for another 4 hours...

It's a bit noisy in my house this morning... Sephiroth is mewing her little high-pitched mews, Goldeneye is giving that deep chesty growl, and Kahvi is making her war cries.

If they're not careful, they're all going to be reminded as to who the top cat in this little group REALLY is... *grumble*

Ta-dah! Here's everyone in my immediate family.



Back row: Me, Dad, Mom
Front row: Chele (sister-in-law) with Caleb (3), Martin (older half-brother) with Joshua (4), Becca (little sister) with TJ (2 Sunday), JR (brother-in-law) with Raven (7)

We last took a picture like this 3 years ago, when Caleb was brand new, so it's nice to have an update.

Mom talked me into fostering a cat for a couple of weeks. The cat is quite aloof, with long white hair and bright green eyes.

Yes, I named her Sephiroth. Ya'll know my obsessions. ;-)

As soon as she feels comfortable enough with her surroundings to not crouch on the floor when I come in (she's very people shy), I'll take a couple of pictures.

Goldeneye, however, is being an incredibly butt about the whole thing, and is about to spend the damn day in the bathroom. :-p

Boredom and rage are not a good combo.

Somedays, I just can't deal with smarmy internet brats who think they since they've had a computer for a year, they know everything.

What else to do, being home sick for the second day with flu-like symptoms?

Watch Cowboy BeBop, of course...

Best. Opening. Music. EVAH~! In fact, all the music I've heard so far in 1 1/2 episodes is awesome. Must go add it to my Amazon wishlist.

Me in my Jake Delhomme jersey, with Harlequin (the smallest of the kittens Mom is fostering).

OK, links updated.

Nothing much else right now.

Starting some editing of the story I wrote last month. Minor stuff for now... put in a couple of notes, take one out, tweak up some dialoge. I need to completely re-do the beginning, I'll work on that later.

I really need to weed out and re-do my links... I'll work on that this weekend.

The good news is that my bone density is great.

The bad news is that my back is completely under attack by arthritis.

I've got a couple of samples to look up and try, while waiting to see when the arthritis docs can see me.

Sorry, friends... I'm doing OK this morning, but then I took a Vicodin last night before bed, so we'll see if the pain comes back when that stuff wears off.

Yesterday was back pain, shoulder pain, lots of pain. I've been told not to take much Advil because it could tear up my stomach/pouch, and I'd rather not have problems in that department. But I'm beginning to think I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to dealing with this. I'm either going to be in pain, or I'm going to have an upset stomach/pouch.

5 hours and a call-back later, I have a 9am appointment tomorrow.

Should I call the doctor again? It's been almost 3 hours...

I'm sitting here, waiting to see if the 2 Advil I just took will take away enough of the pain in my back so I can sit comfortably.

I'll work in pain... but if I can't even sit in a chair, I sure can't work.

I am so fucking tired of working for people who forget me or ignore me all the time.

Went to vote. The law firm said we could take a paid hour to do it, and my boss said to go. I probably stood in line for a little over an hour before getting up to my touch-screen thing. The part that took the longest for a lot of people was the 6 constitutional amendments/bond referendums/etc. The screen had rather small type, and I can see the older folks having problems reading it. But there were also a lot of people of all ages saying they were first-time voters, so that was good.

People are talking about 1 1/2 - 2+ hour waits in line before being able to vote.

I won't get in line until around 5pm. I may be there until 9pm, the rate things are going. ;-)

If you're an American, PLEASE GO VOTE TODAY!

Even if you don't like Bush or Kerry, there's a good handful of third party candidates out there. Hell, write in your mother's name, or your brother's name, or anyone you know who's over 35 and born in America who can do their own math and think independently on occasion.

Then don't forgot all the little local elections. All of them. There's a ton of them, believe me, don't skip them. I know I have a senator, a representative, a state senator, a state respresentative, a sheriff, and a school board to re-elect.

Do feel free to throw all the bums out. My local sheriff, who likes to ignore most of the gang problem? He's gone. New senator? You'll excuse me if I don't vote for the local Republican moron who says gays and single parents shouldn't be teachers. School board? While I don't have kids, my siblings' kids will be going to school around here, and they're the ones who will be taking care of my as I get old.

You're damn right I pay attention. If you don't, don't come back and whine, I'll just smack you into the next millenium.

Me as Sephiroth:



Enjoy. :-p

Whoops.

Forgot to set the clock back.

Forgot the damn USB cable for the digital camera. I'll put pictures up tonight or tomorrow morning, sorry.

:: how jedi are you? ::

*falling over and dying laughing* He's been the best part of that awful prequal trilogy, I swear.

I really should know better than get drunk and watch the "Suteki da ne" scene in FF X...

Surgeon General Says No Shortage of Flu Vaccine

Is this where I start up the "Bullshit" chant?

Drank saké. Damn cheap swill from the local hibachi place. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

*rumaging thru fridge*

Ah, this is good for removing bad tastes... Jim Bean Whiskey.

See ya later. ;-)

Deaf kids struggling to pass English

One thing that caught me in here is a sentence saying, "Experts say the average deaf child isn't introduced to English until age 6, upon entering school."

So these kids don't read? They don't have parents willing to sit down and sign out a book to them, like I sit down and read a book to Raven?

I'm tired, but it's not the kind of afternoon tiredness a cup of coffee will fix.

The arthritis I was diagnosed with 17 years ago is slowly but surely creeping up my back, and I'm tired because I have been in varying degrees of much pain for the last 3 hours.

I get the feeling this is going to be a "Go home and take a vicodin" night...

You are VINCENT. Remember to clean the cobwebs off
your coffin once in a while- first impressions
are lasting!


What Final Fantasy VII character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Not sure how I got that one. :-p

I've got that restless-brain boredom that always makes work hell.

I can't read the books I brought. Can't concentrate on the Mah-Jonng I have on here. My thoughts scatter when I try to write.

Not sure what I need.

And, of course, my brain won't let me calm down. :-p

No, I'm not editing right away. I may wait until I see "Advent's Children", I don't know, it depends on when they release it.

And I'm not writing a sequal yet. So there.

Hopefully I'll dream in the next few nights and have something new to try.

September 13th to October 12th.

28,077 words.

THE END

*lights up a virtual cigarette* Well, that was good for me.

Whoa. Somehow, in the last 20 minutes, I blew past the 25,000 word count.

Got about half that weekend list done.

So far, I've only accomplished #1 and #14. I r suxor. :-p

Things to do this weekend:

1) Massive grocery/home shopping at Wal-Mart
2) Work on armor for costume
3) See how sword is coming along
4) Clean up yard
5) Clean up house
6) Go visit my boss's church (I get a free lunch out of it)
7) Play Demon Stone
8) Watch "Blade Runner"
9) Take pictures of Sophie, the silver Persian I'll be fostering
10) Wash comforter AGAIN
11) Get snug-sack out of the closet for use while I'm on the computer
12) Drink saké
13) Write
14) Fix my brother's computer

I don't want to be here.

It's not really because of work, it's been quiet today and it'll be mostly silent tomorrow, since the lawyers are leaving today for a retreat and a lot of secretaries will take most of tomorrow off for the State Fair.

It's not the writing... I'm cruising along (23,621 words!), getting ready for the final showdown.

It's because I started a new game this morning, and I want to go back to it. Final Fantasy IV. I loved the 20 minutes or so I got to mess with it this morning, and I wanna go spend a few more hours on it.

I just know I'm not going to have a lot of time this weekend to mess with it, or even start on Demon Stone. I've got too much other stuff to do.

I've somehow got almost 6 days of leave. Don't ask me where they came from, I was 3 days in the hole back in May. I may have to use one in the not too distant future...

Since Kahvi is sitting nicely in my lap for the moment, I'll go though my Amazon Gold Box instead of getting up. Yes, I am that lazy.

All-Clad Stainless Roti Pan $233.74
- EXCUSE ME?!?!?

14k Yellow and White Gold 7mm Woven Bracelet, 7.25" $180.00
- Good grief...

Terminator 3: War of the Machines $17.99
- FPS based in the Terminator world... next...

Spiegelau Authentis Collection Burgundy Wine Glasses, Set of 6 $46.74
- Oh yeah, for all those wine and cheese parties I host.

Batplane with 5" Figure $7.98
- That's kinda neat. If my nephews were older, I might think about it.

The Haunted Mansion (Widescreen Edition) $23.48
- No, no, and did I mention no?

Warmrails Kensington Towel Warmer and Drying Rack, Satin Nickel $106.24
- Now that might be neat... it gets cold in my house because my windows need replacing.

Powermatic 1791228K 64 Left Tilt with 50" Accu-Fence, Table, and Legs $899.99
- I think Dad's already got something like that out in the garage.

The Best of Friends, Vol. 1-2 $28.33
- *makes gagging noises*

Le Creuset 10-Inch Square Skillet Grill, Blue $76.49
- OK, why in God's name would I pay that much for ONE skillet???

Sheesh...

User: I've talked to Bill and Sandra, and you're the third person to try this.
Me: OK. (fixes header problems in 60 second or less)
User: I should've just talked to you first.

*big grin*

Yesterday, I got barely over 500 words out. 500 words that had to be drug out, kicking and screaming, to put on the page. 500 words that literally took 6 hours to put down. I'd write a sentence then have to walk away from it in order to figure out the next sentence.

Today, 404 words in 30 minutes. Now the images flow. Now I'm not scared to get to the ending.

And, of course, now is when Delphi has gone completely dead, to the point you can't even get into the Members forum to look for updates on the problem that started yesterday. And people pay for that crap? (sorry, C4S gang, I know most of y'all have)

Xenosaga is outta here. Any game that cheats you out of turns in battle worse than FF X-2 gets sent back. I have no patience to start over AGAIN. I'll go find a script on the web and read it.

Just broke the 20,000 word barrier. :-)